Why is Samantha AGs bestselling doll?

I found that I connected to Samantha, not sure why, but I enjoyed her books very much. I guess because I was Girly Girl growing with all the pretty dresses and stuff too.

Nikki [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]

Well, as I've said many times, I want to get all of the American Girl historicals and their friends. I think each doll brings a unqiue experince through her outfits and accessories, and of course her personality!

That being said, Samantha is last on my list to get, lol. I've asked for Nellie for my birthday at the end of the month because I think she's absolutely adorable. I imagine she will have alot of Samantha's collection before Samantha herself joins our dollfamily, lol.

I don't know what it is that puts her so low on my list, but it's been like that since I first read the books as a child. Maybe I just didn't find them as interesting as Molly and Kirsten struggling through their hardships. Granted, I plan to read all these books again as an adult, but as of thirteen years ago, I found her stories boring and thought she was too pampered. I would've loved a Nellie doll then, now there's an orphan for you! Sterotypical, I know, but even as a child I was more sympathetic to characters who had hardships, and while the era was not easy to in live in, I'm sure, it seemed to me then that Samantha had it pretty darn easy.

And now, to be honest, I don't like alot of her clothing. It's not because it's too girly, as I adore Felicity's collection, but it just dosen't do it for me. Oddly enough, I love everything of Nellie's so far...from the same time period, no less!

In the end, I think there's an AG historical for every type of girl out there...from the girly girl to the tomboy. And thus my quest to get them all....there's more variety in this line then any other collectiable toy line I've seen.

It's so interesting to read everyone's POV. I was a girly girl raised in a family that discouraged feminity. I would not have liked any of the AG stories when I was young as I see all of them as being tomboys, and in some of them there is a feminine character who was deliberately and stereotypically made mean. I think this is intentional - Pleasant Rowland is the age to have thought that to be strong you had to be a feminist and to define that as 'manish'. There is a line of dolls called Girls Explore! that comes from that mindset and I swear they used GI Joe as the face mold! No lip color either. There is a generation that thought you have to act a certain way to be taken seriously.

I happen to like Martha Stewart because I think she walks the line better than anyone between being true to her feminine side and being business like too. I can see Martha playing dolls and giggling as a child. I see Pleasant sitting there feeling somewhat uncomfortable with it. I've seen her photos of her dolls and read her comments, and it sounded like she was talking about being 12, not 9, and she spoke in a somewhat removed way. Believe me when I say this is not critcism of Pleasant - I love what she recognized and brought to the world. I think she was successful because of who she is - had she been a girly girl I do not think she'd have succeeded. But nowhere in her books do I see the child I was nor my daughter.

When I was young and even now, I never read about girls I particularly identified with. It is so common to either write girls as prissy (not feminine, but manipulative and vapid) antagonists or else tomboy (clever, book smart and tough) protagonists. I remember being frustrated by this, and I also rememebr that I woudl not have been caught wiht a book like Pollyanna who I would have identified with because she had a reputaitn for being smarmy. I do remember identifying with Flossie Bobbsey, even though she was younger than me ( I was more Nan's age) because she was like me. I would have loved the English Milly Molly Mandy who blends girlishness and business acumen so beautifuly she might have been the first Martha Stewart, and Betsy Tacy who does a pretty bang up job of that herself.

I was intrigued by Laura Ingalls because I thought if she had been raised differently she would have been more feminine - I thought that her life ( like my own) dictated that she be a certain way. Also I was aware that she was an adult writing about her childhood and even then I knew adults grow out of that girly quality and have a hard time going back to that place even to write about it.

My dd is very feminine but has no trouble running with the boys. I just dropped her off at a (girl) friends house and she cheerfully announced they would probably leg wrestle, play with her friend's horse and listen to a joke cd she borrowed from her brother. However, when she is alone she is much more inclined to dance, play piano, garden. cook and play with/make things for her dolls. I've noticed none of her friends enjoy these activities ( except for dance), and wondered if it bothers her to be so different. It doesn't seem to but then she has me to share those things with and she also feels more at ease in her skin than I did ( I am more accepting of her than my mother was of me). I don't think she feels the need for a doll or book that is like her, but I worry about little girls who are like me and who do.

Perhaps the definition of feminine has changed, but in my day the things my dd does with her friends would be considered tomboyish. I don't think any of the AG girls would have been considered feminine (except perhaps Addy who had little chance to be) by anyone who was girlish. Just my take on it.

Popsie

I am another one who grew to like Samantha through Nellie. I just could not identify with her character. I grew up decidedly lower middle class about 20 miles from her character's setting and just could not relate at all. My godmother grew up in Samantha's time and lost her parents at an early age as well and I remember when the dolls came out she loved the clothes but could not identify with the character. She would have been more inclined to have been raised like Nellie had it not been for the kindness of relatives taking her in.

I adore Nellie. Through Nellie I have grown to like Samantha. DH's grandmother, however had an upbringing much like Samantha's and through her stories I learned more and appreciated more of Samantha's character.

Popsie

You mentioned you have some Muffy furniture. I love Muffy. I have a lot of Muffy's collection but not furntiure. I wondered if anyone on this sight had heard of Muffy.

I never thought of Samantha being that tomboyish. I mean yeah she liked to tease and run around with Eddy Ryland and she wanted to fly someday, but she did work on a sampler, and play piano, and she was well mannered. In her birthday story it tells about how hard everybody tried to be so ladylake before Jip came and stirred things up. Also if you read Nellie's Promise Samantha seems really into dancing and fits in at her school for wealthy girls, while it's Nellie who wants to learn more practical stuff so she can become a teacher. Even Samantha's view on suffrage isn't really known, just Aunt Cornelia's.
I think a very good point is brought up in Felicity's Surprise. Based on the first 2 Felicity books you'd think Felicity was a tomboy because she hates doing sitting down things, and she cross dresses to go out and ride horses. When Ben scolds her for being into her gown for the ball and dreaming about it all day she says something like can't she like to ride horses but dream about dancing and gowns too???
This showed me that like me, Felicity has both sides in her. Felicity likes being outdoors, and hates sewing but I think she loves being ladylike at tea, wearing pretty gowns, playing music, and dancing. That was one of the things I liked about Felicity's surprise was it did show another more feminine side to her and it also showed that it's not wrong for women to want to look pretty or splurge on something frivilous such as a gorgeous gown.

I've always wondered - why DO they say Sam is Victorian, when Victoria had been dead for 3 years when her stories start? She is indeed Edwardian.

The first 2 dolls to join our family were Samanthas. 2 of my GD's just had to have her. This doll is who I began making clothes for. My favorites are Molly, Josefina and Felicity.

Interesting point, Gingerharp. I have not read Nellie's Promise yet - we just got it. One of the things that makes me see her as a tomboy is that she does things like sewing and playing piano, but it is clearly at Cornelia's bidding and not for pleasure or her choice. I've never had to ask my dd to practise piano - it is one her favorite activities, as is sewing. So, that is my perspective.

I guess it goes without saying that there are many degrees of tomboy vs girly girl. To me being feminie does not mean I don't want to vote or would not go out and fight for the right. Another person might feel or define it differently.

I remember now the quote of Felicity's to Ben about being both - and I liked that but didn't think her over all demeanor was very feminine. The stuff about the ball rang false(in terms of her character) to me - but boy did it get my dd excited about going to Williamsburg and going to the ball! We researched and discovered that if you dress in costime you are more likely to be asked to come in and dance. So she wrangled not one but *two* dresses out of me - one for day and one for the ball. Then we couldn't go. One day....

None of the authors (when they give their bios) strike me as very girly and maybe it is the nuance of someone who is (and can give it to a character) I am looking for. A kinship...

Regarding Muffy - we were/are big Muffy fans here. We probably own 75% of that line [img]redface.gif[/img] Very well made, charming, age appropriate for younger girls, educational if that matters to you and dirt cheap on ebay these days. I don't think you'd find a better value on any toy for girls about 6 years old anywhere. You can PM me anything you like about it. Some of the accessories work with AG. All the furniture is about the same quality as AG.

I think Samantha is wonderful! But I also think that once she is gone (well not as well advertized) people will want her more! That's the way things go sometimes--once something is gone you want it more. I also think that maybe (I'm just stating my own opinion) I think Sam will be the next taken out of the magazine so that people then will want to get her before her things start retiring in a snap of their fingers... (makes no sense to you maybe, but it does to me!) [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ February 10, 2007 01:36 AM: Message edited by: djsnjones ]</font>

Lieu2, your post made me laugh - I agree - some of the clothes of the time are really fun, but don't quite fit who we are now, do they?

I agree with Gingerharp about how rich girls are often portayed in books. I especially despise Nelly from Little House on the Prairie tv series, which combined the blonde stereotype with the rich stereotype to result in a truly ugly 2 dimensional character. She and her mother spoiled an otherwise realisticly done show. If it makes you feel any better, Gingerharp, I grew up quite poor and never saw a strong correlation between money and attitude. I think this does change some as kids get older, but in elementary school, what you have does not make you who you are. I have certainly seen parents who judge by wealth, both when I was young and now, but not kids.

Samantha is not only my (and my dd's) least favorite doll, she is our least favorite by such a large margin that her name grates on our nerves. I appreciate this thread because it's nice to hear what people do like about her - maybe you'll give us something to cling to.

What follows is my criticism of her, and if you don't like criticism of anything AG, please skip the rest of this post and have a pleasant day enjoying what you love about your dolls and blissfully unaware of what I dislike so much about her :-). We can meet again when i write mroe favorable posts - there is much to love in these dolls too!

First of all, I think the company had it in their mind they would sell the whole concept of historical dolls with Samantha . Other so called Victorian style dolls were out there,a nd I think Pleasant saw this as a gateway to using them to teach history. So, they put a lot of effort into what she though was 'pretty' with little regards to waht was really historical. Samantha really stands out in this way because so little of her is accurate and most of the other dolls are more or less so.

My dd discovered history when she was five, quite by accident. while listening to Anne of Green Gables on tape. She started asking questions about what people wore and asked things like "You mean, they did not wear the same clothes they wear now?" Once I confirmed this, she began talking about leg of mutton sleeves, and other details that showed me she'd listened very keenly. Over the next year or so she proved to be very much aware of clothing then and now. The fruit does not fall far from the tree, as they say - I have had an interest ( sometimes a passion) for the history of fashion since I was a small child myself. My books had been packed away since our last move(when I was pregnant with her) so I got them out and let her read them. By the time she got her first AG doll ( Kit) she had read all the better known books on the history of fashion and several obscure ones, including antique ones with hand silk screened illustrations. I must have hundreds of photos of children at the turn of the century, but you can look at the Samantha's World book and see the errors in much of what they did for her. Begin with the cover - they've washed out her Meet dress so tha tit looks about right. Her bow is larger, her bangs thinner, and that is just the drawing. On page 10, a drawing again, but look at it closely - the clothes are not bright colored, even in the center where three girls have been given heightened coloring to make them stand out. - they are tertiaries.If you look behind them there are girls in the colors people most often wore. I have been in vintage clothes stores that specialized in this time period, and it is a sea of white, with color used only sparingly and almost always, delicately. The next page shows the colors more accurately, and then on page 14, you see an evening gown tha tbeautifully illustrates what I am trying to describe - watered down garden colors like a blue sash so light you have to look twice to see the blue in it. I own many beautiful antique ribbons in these shades. The red shoes shown with it are from the 1920's - you can tell from the rounded toe. The shoe on the manniquin wearing the dress is also incorrect - again, it is too round. ON pagge 15 you see an opera singer dressed for Queen Victorian's period, and a photo of her as a child - probably taken about 1870. The use of such photos is misleading. If you look at the ladies at the opera in the drawing, their dresses sit on top of their shoulder, not off the shoulder. On page 16, there is a period picture og a girl and boy. Again, notice the tertiary colors, only this time the girl does have a dark dress on. This would have been her play or school dress, and would have stood out as such in an otherwise pastel closet. Pastel used to mean very very pale. The girls below are probably from about 10 years later.

As you tun the next several pages, even poor children are dressed in white, which underscores how universal a style it was. Yes, children owned other colors, but the majority of their wardrobe was white, white and more white, or by 1904, that iced pink, blue, lavender or yellow. PInk was the second most popular color and it was allowed to be darker - generally about the shade of the dress on Samanthqa's doll - not the doll the AG company sends out, but the one in the picture on page 28.

On Page 29, there is a well populated doll house. If you look in each room, going left to right, to to bottom as in a book, you will see first a girl in pale blue playing with her own dolls hen you see a boy in LOd Fauntleroy suit, and someone taking air in her furr collared coat and hat. In ther center of the page are twins - boy and girlin light gray outfits. This is the style AG usually puts Samantha in. This looks like Samantha's school dress, in fact. But notice this doll's skirt has a dropped waist and a lot of froth around the neck. The difference between this dress and most of Samanthas is that her clothes tend to look too adult (they lack the froth)and somehow masculine. The larger doll on htis page, BTW is dressed as an adult .

Next page has something special - a beautiful pink dress which AG had the wisdom to copy. You also see a photo of five children, three of whom are girls. One is in a chambray sailor suit, one in standard white and one in a darker plaid. All three have large sun hats, like Sam should have with every outfit. That's not to say she'd always wear it, as indicated by the girl in white. Note that these are poor childrn - there will be some exceptions to fashion that Samantha would not have made. The girl in the dark plaid has a waist tha tsits higher, and if you look at the hem, it too is shorter than the others. Her sleeves jus tbarely reach her wrist. She's thinner too - probably she's just had a growth spurt and there wasn't money or time to make her a new dress. If you look at the girls behind them, you will see one in a pinafore and the other too has a waist that sits high. But, look at her sleeve length! She's grown recently too, and she also looks older - after puberty girls wore their waists higher.

Look at the shoe in the center of the page - see the toe? Look back at the red shoe, and you can see they are from a different era. These are adult shoes, mind you - boys shoes were often blunt, and so were girls shoes on occassion.

For those of you who are younger, it is only recently that fashion had an anything goes quality. During Samantha's time there were strict rules to be followed, and not to follow them meant scandal. Scandal meant a whole lot more than than it does now too!

Edwardians were the first generation to wear white wedding dresses as a matter of course. The bouquet too would have been white or nearly so. Orange blossoms represent luck, and were worn in the bride's hair as well as her bouquet through the 1930's. In Hispanic communities this is still done.

On page 50 is a photo of an orphan train. Obviously these are poor children and yet the girls are nearly all in white or some light color. Therea are few if any bangs, and the high waists are on dresses with shorter skirts, indicating a growth spurt.

It has always been interesting to me that htis book mostly shows photos of the poor, whne the doll is wealthy. I htink tha tis because the wealthy were more likely to take formal portraits that said little about their lives. It is up to us to read deeper and see the contrast between how Samantha would have lived and
what sort of clothes she woudl have had. I suspect AG was afraid of making her look babyish to a generation of girls who associate pastels and lace with babies. However, to my dd and myself, the whole Edwardian fascination with color in the most delicate shades is a lot of the draw of that era. We also like the balance and harmony of the fashions and to us Samantha's are discordant and often just plain awkward.

By the time we started showing my dd catalogues from American Girl she knew Samantha's clothes were wrong. Her waist is too high and they've confused Victorian and Edwardian ( she is not, as is so often said, Victorian - the Victorian period was heavy and dark and Edwardians reacted to that with all their aesthetic senses!). She wears too few ruffles and too stiff bows. Most of her clothes would have been eyelet or had some other type of lace, including play clothes, and none of them would have been as stiff as most of her fabrics were - they wore dimnitys and voiles and china silks in layers. She would have had light prints of flowers - perhaps done in an ikat weave, (my all time favorite) like Felicity's Meet dress imitates. The flowers in her prints would have been symbolic choices - diaises and roses and violets were all popular for their meanings. Prints often were veyr subtle - pale peach on ivory or palest grey on white, for example. Synthetic dyes and new printing methods were recent inventions and Edwardians celebrated what they could do.

She might have had a play dress out of a soft but heavier fabric like chambray, brushed twill or wool flannel. All of these fabrics draped, which none of Samantha's do. Her and Nellies spriong party dresses are cut better (still too high in the waist) but the fabric doesn't have the right 'hand' as they say in the business. They need to use something like rayon to get the weight and therefore drape. Sams ends up looking like a business suit and the flowers just look wrong on it - although they made it white, they used too tailored a pattern for it to tell the right story. She might have had clothes printed in pictures from Kate Greenaway's books. Pinafores, parisols gloves and hats would have been a staple in her wardrobe, but she does not own gloves or any hat like she'd have worn then, plus her parisol is totally wrong ( it belongs in the 1940s on an adult). Her underwear would likely have been wool year around, as it was thought to be health giving and was especially popular with the wealthy. She'd have eaten Keloggs Corn Flakes for breakfast and slept in the open air on a sleeping porch for the same reason. At her age she'd still have been put down for naps mid day! Perhaps not at Gard's house but at GrandMary's this was standard.

Her bridesmaid dress is an abomination from beginning to end, being done in a color then thought to be vulgar, and a length that would have been completely innapropriate for a girl her age, as length signified readiness for courting. The waist is wrong and the oddest thing is that if you see the movie some of these things are correct in the costume. Note how the lace iin the movie version drapes like dresses did then, instead of standing up. Her hat could not be worse, because it so strongly evokes dimestore hats from another era. The over all affect, from bright pink plastic flowers to peekaboo nylon lace petticoat to that hat is pure 1970's.

Oddly, all the adult clothes and most children's clothes except for Samantha's and Nellies are correct in the movie. So, AG knows what is historically corect - they just choose not to honor history. I have a big problem with this. One of the best things about the AG dolls is they have the ability to spark an interest in history, and I've found that you can get that spark ignited with some fun stories about why certain aspects of fashion came to be. But not if it is some kind of corporate malarkey the child is seeing.

Generally speaking the only place you saw dark colors in girl's clothing was on the bib and cuffs of dresses. Her school dress would be great if they reversed the trim and body of the dress - a cream colored wool dress with grey collar and cuffs (to stay clean longer - they might even detach for cleaning) would be more accurate. The same with Nellies plaid and white dress. How much cuter it would have been reversed too! Her other clothes are nearly all too bright and too dark. Her Talent dress is perfect and ther blue short story dress ( forgot the occassion for it) comes close to being correct, (it' a little too dark, but drapes well)and I wish they'd continue in that vein. Her lawn party dress - what were they thinking with that? It's a halloween mish mash.

Rule of thumb - Edwardians, led by Kin Edward, celebrated life, after a long period where Victoia celebrated death (she went to the extent of having a private gallery of photos of dead people she didn't even know in her living quarters). Black was Victoria;s color, and strong colors like bright royal blue were used to accent it. White was the color of Edward's time, because his generation celebrated life. When color was used it was floral shades, and a blush, not a saturated shade.

It's interesting that some see Sam as feminine. To me she is very much a tomboy living in feminine times she isn't always happy about. She does not have the patience or inclination to do the kinds of things young girls were encouraged to do in her day - or that I enjoyed doing as a child. She does not sew or do any kind of fine craft which young girls did. She makes snowflakes, which are an activity from my childhood ( Probably hers too) that is considered simple enough to have even a class of boisterous boys do. There are many kinds of paper crafts that both Victorians and Edwardians did but which take patience kids living in the world of tv and video games rarely have the patience for. I believe this is why AG made her less inclined to do those things, but she comes off to someone who understands her era as rather hyperactive.

Her furniture strikes me as uninispired and off the shelf - not the custom designs all the other dolls have. We have a Muffy table and chairs just like hers and can buy her dishes readily through a company we know - and add punch bowls and other dishes too. I love her stereoviewer but it is Victorian. Most of all I wonder about what she does not have - a phone, a shower and a great kitchen, for starters. I'd ahve given her a Stickley arts and crafts table and chairs, not lawn furniture. Why does she not have a bicycle? She and Nellie could have had a tandem!!!

My dd owns Samantha, because we found her for a great price and she had the money to buy her, but it was still a half hearted purchase. We keep waiting for her things to improive, but are continually disappointed as they become less and less ture to history. We both see Samantha as part of the AG family and have given her a wardrobe of clothes like she'd actually have worn - antique clothes that originally belonged to dolls from her time period. But, I find her hair impossible to work with ( too thick to properly do) and my dd simply does not like her looks. We both think her Magic Attic Heather looks much more like the refined Samantha who would have come from an aristocratic family. I'm thinking I;lkl try rewigging Samantha and if that doesn't do it we might send her off on the orphan train.